FAQs

A Conductive hearing loss is caused by interference in the transmission of sound to the inner ear. Infants and young children frequently develop conductive hearing loss due to ear infections. This loss is usually mild, temporary, and treatable with medicine or surgery.

A Sensorineural hearing loss involves malformation, dysfunction, or damage to the inner ear (cochlea) or nerve of hearing and is rarely due to problems with the auditory cortex of the brain. The most common type is cochlear hearing loss and this may involve a specific part of the cochlea (inner hair cells or outer hair cells or both). It may be hereditary or may be caused by a number of different situations, but sometimes the cause is unknown. This type of hearing loss is usually permanent.

Because the hearing loss may be progressive, repeat audiologic testing should be done. Sensorineural hearing loss is generally not reversible medically or surgically, but persons with this type of hearing loss often can be helped with hearing aids.

A Mixed hearing loss occurs when both conductive and sensorineural hearing loss are present at the same time.

A Central hearing loss involves the hearing areas of the brain, which may show as difficulty "processing" speech and other auditory information. This is often referred to as "Auditory Processing Disorder" and may be misdiagnosed as a behavioural disorder.

It appears that the individual is able to hear people talk but they seem to have difficulty understanding some of the words being spoken. As a result they're constantly asking people to repeat themselves.

They have a hard time understanding higher pitched voices of women and children.

Crowd noise seems to make it very hard to communicate with a person with hearing loss.

A person who is normally very social shies away from social outings they would have once looked forward to.

A person suffering from hearing loss may seem withdrawn, depressed or irritable.

Difficulty with telephone conversations result in a lot of frustration.

The ear, despite its small size, is a highly complex organ. Acting as sound filter, the ear transforms every sound audible to us into accurate information the brain can prioritise.

Each ear consists of delicate and highly complex mechanisms. In “the inner” ear, a sea of tiny sensory cells and nerve fibres pick up sound vibrations and transform them into electrical impulses for the brain to process.

If the ear is exposed to strong vibrations over time, the sensory cells and fibres can become damaged, if these are unable to heal or be replaced, this can lead to permanent hearing loss.

Anatomy

The ear is made up of three parts:

the outer ear (the external ear and the ear canal)

the middle ear (the ear drum and three very small bones)

the inner ear (the cochlea and auditory nerve)

Sound travels through the air in waves resulting in a series of vibrations within the ear. The brain then interprets those signals into meaningful sounds such as speech.

Many people know it can be challenging to follow conversations in some places, like in a noisy restaurant. The reason for this is that speech is made up of a great number of different sounds, put together in a very rapid flow.

Some letters are heard better than others

For instance, the high-pitched consonants like f, s and t are easily drowned out by louder, low pitched vowels like a, o and u.

The reason for the brain drain

When it comes to hearing, it may come as a surprise to learn that the brain works harder than the ears, this is why in noisy environments, such as in a crowded restaurant, it can be very frustrating just trying to follow conversation. Even people with no hearing loss can find this challenging.

Faced with noisy situations, our cognitive system works hard to decipher and separate sounds. Someone with only slight hearing loss can often feel exhausted after visiting a noisy venue.

Ordinarily your brain will be able to sort through all information you apply your attention to through a cognitive process: Simply the brain organises, selects and follows:

Organise
A good mental map of the current sound environment.

Select
Allowing the listener to select a desired source.

Follow
Enhances the ability to follow the source over time as knowledge about the selected source is accumulated.

Hearing care traditionally focuses on delivering audible sound at frequencies where the user has a hearing loss. But this approach has limitations if we want to ensure the brain can make sense of the sounds it receives.

This is why we have moved from an "ear first" to a "brain first" approach. Implementing BrainHearing technology to our Alta models has given impressive results:

Delivering what the brain needs

There are four functions the brain needs to carry out to make sense of the sound it receives:

- orient the different sounds, using both ears
- separate the sounds to be able to focus on desired source
- focus on what's important, using both ears
- recognize what each sound is and make sense of it

BrainHearing is designed to deliver the right sounds to the brain so these four functions can be carried out. Working seamlessly across both ears, BrainHearing technology combines the following features:

Spatial Sound
Inium technology allows binaural processing, meaning both ears deliver more precise spatial information to the brain. This helps the brain orient the sounds and make spatial sense of the outside world.

Speech Guard
By prioritizing speech and preserving its characteristics, Speech Guard helps the brain recognize and separate speech sounds, making it easier to focus on conversations.

Free Focus
Working together with Spatial Sound and Speech Guard, Free Focus gives users a wide choice of directionality so they can focus on what's important. This can be a vital help in challenging, noisy environments.

YouMatic
YouMatic tunes the hearing instruments to better adapt to an individual's own interpretation of sounds. This can help you provide the right level of help to clients, so they can each make better sense of the sound they wish to access.

With each of these features working together, BrainHearing™ aims to gives a listening experience beyond that of traditional “ear-hearing” methods.

The Apple iPod and the Smart Phone have become the most common devices for listening to music by today's teens. The continual blaring of music through a head set is seductive to so many because it creates a personal buffer that drowns out the outside world. This private, intimate and most often intense relationship with music, however, can be directly linked to noise-induced hearing loss.

Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) refers to a gradual, cumulative and
preventable decline in auditory function that follows repeated exposure to
loud noise. This overexposure to noise can cause both temporary and
permanent hearing loss. The two main factors in preventing NIHL are to be
aware of the level or volume of noise and the duration of time of exposure.
The louder the level of sound the shorter the recommended exposure time
should be.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), being exposed to more than 85 decibels (about the level that teens listen to their music today) of sound for eight hours can damage your hearing. The capabilities of modern devices with improved battery life and unlimited playlists makes this possible. Keeping in mind, when you factor in that any time that level is increased it shortens that exposure time, it becomes easily attainable.

As a parent, what should you do?

Talk with your kids about using lower volume when listening to music with headphones or earbuds. The highest volume setting on headphones is too loud and will lead to hearing loss. Most devices have a master volume in the "Settings" set the "Volume Limit" under "Music" to 60%.

Encourage your kids to listen in a quiet, controlled environment. If not possible opt for noise cancelling headphones to better isolate the background noise, thus enabling them to listen at a lower volume.

Take a break. The two contributing factors to NIHL are noise level and exposure time so encourage your kids to take a break. Try the 60/60 rule: Never turn your volume past 60 percent and only listen to music with ear buds for a maximum of 60 minutes per day.

Encourage your kids not to fall asleep while listening to music. An iPod can't tell if the listener is actually listening to the song or not, but if they have music playing in their ears for hours at a time, they are putting themselves at risk of permanently damaging their ears.